🚀 go-pugleaf

John (gt6...@prism.gatech.edu) wrote:
: Bill Clinton <ttp0581> writes:


: Originally, Richard Garriot did *ALL* of his game development on
: and for the Apple II.  Back in 1988 he realized that while he really
: really wanted to remain loyal to the Apple II community, it was
: keeping him from developing his games any further.  I think his last
: Ultima game developed with an Apple II had something like a 127
: tile limit (ie. no pseudo-animation of cycling tiles to make torches
: look like they're burning, really limited water moving effects, not
: enough memory to do things like dusk and dawn, etc), and his first
: IBM PC developed game had something like 1000.

: At Dragon Con in 88 he gave a talk about the future of Origin
: games, and basically said "Instead of developing games for the low
: end user, and making everyone with a better system deal with the least
: common denominator, we've decided that we will develop for the high
: end system that has stereo sound, great graphics, speed and disk space.
: If you have a low end system, you'll still be able to play, but you'll
: lose some detail, sound, and features depending on how far down the
: list of capabilities your system has."

: I pretty much agree with him.  If you're going to develop your game, you
: should definitely take advantage of as many system features as you can,
: and not develop for the lowest common denominator.  Technology moves on,
: and people move with it.  That means games have to do so too.  And along
: the way,  you stay as backward compatable as the software will reasonably
: allow (without becomming unplayable, etc).

: Afterall, where would Origin games be if Wing Commander and System Shock
: were both designed, implimented, and capable of running on an Apple II?
: I think their business would be in much more jeopardy in that case..because
: their games would all suck (Not to say that the simple games, like
: loadrunner, etc, aren't fun.. that's just not the part of the game market
: we're talking about).  In a sense, ID Games did the same thing.  Can you
: imagine how pitiful Doom's game play would be if it was backward compatable
: to anyone who still only has a PC with 1 or 2 5.25" floppy drives, 256k,
: and a CGA monitor? (don't laugh, there are still people out there who
: have them, and who do just fine with that system for what they use it for).

: You could make the case that they've gone from one extreme to the other.
: That may be so, but I think they keep the rest of the game industry on
: their toes by doing so.  And I definitely like it.  Maybe I'll change
: my mind when a 486dx33 with fast bus speeds becomes 'too slow and
: featureless' to run Origin games.  But I don't see that happening for a
: while.  And I'm already hoping to upgrade by the middle of next year.

You're right you can make that case. Its one thing to push the limits 
of technology, its quite another to demand that everyone upgrade
to play your games. When Ultima 6 came out, it was a time when everyone
wanted to see the PC be the major platform. The technology was there
and it was ready. I am also ready to agree that CD ROM technology
is viable and here today. My whole beef has been in the misguided way
Origin has been handling this techology.... What do I mean? Take 
WC Armada for example. 13 megs it takes up. This easily fits on 3 1/2"
disks and costs just as much to duplicate, perhaps cheaper.... (My
numbers on CD reproduction are a year old, so don't quote me on that :) )
There is no need for it to be a CD only product, as it is now. Yes, you
can play it off the CD and if you don't have the HD space, thats a good
option, but what kind of delays do you get playing it off the CD? I haven't
tried because I don't have DOS drivers for my CD ROM. Can anyone tell me?
I bet they're fairly annoying. I'm not argueing against CD ROM only
games either. Games like Rebel Assult and the like are great! My point
is that Origin has been notorious for putting games on CD ROM and 
advertising them as "Playable off the CD" when doing so is so unbearbly
slow that only those that were low on HD space would ever do it! 

WC III is going to be a CD ROM game. If they install all of the game
graphics on the HD and use the CDs for multimedia clips, more power
to them! 
Ultima 9 is going to be CD ROM only. If they use the CD for digitized
speech and install all the frequently used game info on the HD, again
more power to them!

I said I'd reserve my judgements until then, but I have a sneaking
suspision that Origin will push the CD technology and have too much
data left on the CD. Thats where the mistake comes in, because the
CD ROM speeds are not ready for it. Unless of course they recommend
a triple speed CD, which I won't be suprised if they do. Thats my
point. Ready to buy a cheap double speed CD ROM for $100? Sure,why
not. Ready to trade that in for a triple speed for a considerably
higher price? Few of us are.... But that's the kind of thing Origin
has been doing for the past few years....


: (not just to run games tho.. )

: John

: -- 
: John "Kzin" Rudd   gt6...@prism.gatech.edu       (ex-...@cc.gatech.edu)
:                    Ascii Mail only (no Nextmail)  (ex-...@ucscb.ucsc.edu)
: ========Intel: Putting the backward in backward compatable.===============